


Much Ado About Something

by DaisyNinjaGirl



Series: The More Loving One [1]
Category: AUSTEN Jane - Works, Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
Genre: AU: Canon divergence, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28831551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/pseuds/DaisyNinjaGirl
Summary: He shook his head.  “Marianne is light and fire and passion; you could warm your hands on her.  You are my friend: peacefulness and ease.  Do you think that’s nothing?  I was cursed by the fairy of silence at my christening, Elinor, there are few in this world I can talk to so easily.”  He stood in the rain, the cold droplets slicking his hair and sliding down the back of his collar.  “When you marry, Elinor, I will try to be happy for you, because I would like to see you settled with one who values you, established.  But I would grieve also, for I would be sorry to lose my friend.”Chapter 1: MayChapter 2: JuneChapter 3: JulyChapter 4: AugustChapter 5: SeptemberChapter 6: OctoberEpilogue
Relationships: Colonel Brandon & Marianne Dashwood & Margaret Dashwood, Colonel Brandon/Elinor Dashwood, Marianne Dashwood/Mystery Character
Series: The More Loving One [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112096
Comments: 43
Kudos: 59
Collections: New Year's Resolutions 2021





	1. May

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChronicBookworm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicBookworm/gifts).



> Dear ChronicBookworm, after I wrote you a Yuletide treat, I had a lot of thoughts about how did everybody get to where they were - hopefully this pleases.

After a long and painful winter, spring finally arrived in the village of Barton. Elinor had been occupying herself in the garden at the back of their little cottage, alone but for the hills rising up behind her, and was so intent on setting the flower border to rights that, when company arrived, there was no time to rise and flutter and do the ritual dance of pretending that she had in fact nothing to do at all, and she had no choice but to greet her visitor as she was.

“Good morning, Miss Dashwood,” a tall crow, backlit by the sun, said kindly. “Please don’t get up.”

“Colonel Brandon,” Elinor said. “I’m so sorry. Marianne is sleeping, and my mother and Margaret are away to Exeter with Mrs Jennings.”

“Of course.” He cocked his head a little. “I don’t want to interrupt when you’re busy, but do you mind if I sit and enjoy the sunshine? I have been doing much posting about these past few weeks…”

She nodded, awkward. “Can I thank you again for lending us your carriage on the way from Cleveland? It made the journey home so much easier for Marianne.”

He half smiled and shook his head a little. “It was an easy favour. I’ve been ill from time to time myself, I know how it feels.” And he leaned back against the wall of the cottage with his eyes shut, heavy lines engraving his face in the early spring sun. He looked as weary as she felt, Elinor thought with a sigh, and sat back on her heels, wiping her grubby hands on her apron.

“How are Eliza and her baby?” Elinor asked.

“Tired, mostly. Little Beth sleeps quite badly the midwife says, but what would I know? I was there when she was born, did I tell you? She’s a skinny little thing, all legs and arms and huge eyes, and she’s started to look at me is if she knows me. Eliza is—Eliza is just a baby herself. I still remember the first time I saw her, she had such big eyes…”

He trailed off, and Elinor wondered with how many people he was able to share his news about his little family. 

“Not so many. Mrs Jennings and Sir John know _of_ Eliza, or at least some of it, but Sir John is a sportsman and Mrs Jennings—Mrs Jennings is very worthy—”

“But she likes to speculate about people’s lives.”

“Tactfully put, Miss Dashwood. There is my sister of course, but she has been away in France these many years. She chose not to foster.”

Elinor could hear the old hurt in her friend’s voice, and pitied him. “Will you excuse me a moment, Colonel? I have something for Miss Williams.” She returned with a little paper packet, and he opened it to find a baby dress, smocked and nicely embroidered.

He frowned, as—Elinor was beginning to realise—he did when sentiment was too great. “This was very kind of you, Miss Dashwood.”

She shook her head. “It was an easy favour. She should have something pretty for the baby, whatever happens to it.”

He thought for a moment. “And how is your sister, Miss Marianne?”

“She is resolved to rise no later than six and embark on a course of serious reading and self-improvement.”

“Oh, poor Elinor,” he said sympathetically. “You will get your sister back soon enough,” and he embarked on a lengthy recounting of a 13-year-old Eliza recovering from the influenza and the dramatic soliloquies and comic interludes this had visited on the rest of the household, to what disruption, until she giggled. She could not tell from his anecdote which Eliza he meant, but perhaps that did not matter much.

There was a great barking of dogs then, and the arrival of the open carriage that carried the noisy Mrs Jennings, and Elinor’s mother and sister, down the lane from the park. Marianne emerged, blinking a little, from the house also, and the crowd of them bustled about in a merry riot. Colonel Brandon stood up then, buttoning himself back into formality, and he was so very civil, so consciously pleasant to Mrs Dashwood and her sisters that it was not until her nightly reflections of the day that Elinor realised Brandon’s that most recent favoured topic of conversation—his plans for the little parsonage to house Edward—had not been mentioned at all.

***

They saw Colonel Brandon two days later, when they had been summoned up to the park to dine for, excepting Mrs Jennings, Sir John Middleton, the two older children, Colonel Brandon, and Lady Middleton’s sister and brother-in-law lately arrived from Somersetshire, poor Lady Middleton had no one in the world to amuse her and risked being left quite alone that evening. Barton Park had a new accoutrement to add to its forcing houses, stew ponds and orchards; Lady Middleton had acquired a new elegance, the presence of two peacocks strutting about the terrace with glorious feathers in the advance, and ungainly jutting fluff guarding their retreat.

“Why do they stick their feathers out so?” Margaret asked, dubious.

“They are asking the young ladies to dance,” Colonel Brandon said, unbending with a smile and making an elaborate bow to the young girl. “My lady?” he asked grandly. Margaret giggled, accepted his hand, and trod a few measures of a minuet, her head held high and proud. Marianne, who was leaning on Elinor’s arm, deigned to laugh, but Elinor could see her sister’s face warm in good humour.

This was Elinor’s and Marianne’s first evening at Barton Park since their return from London: Marianne had been very fatigued and Elinor did not like to leave her alone, and so they were great objects of curiosity with their hosts, or at least with Sir John, who rather liked to tease young women who were in bouncing good health and made pressing suggestions about possets and rest cures that they were hard put to deny. But his wife _did_ venture a solitary remark about how pale Marianne was before lapsing into withdrawn insipidity, so they felt really welcome. Mr Palmer addressed Elinor with two and a half disagreeable observations before he remembered that he had decided to like her, and lapsed into reading the newspaper, leaving Elinor to amuse his wife without any assistance although, as Mrs Palmer always said much more than she thought, this was not difficult.

“Oh,” Elinor said suddenly, realising that Mrs Palmer’s stream of chatter had run dry, and considered the woman’s previous remark, a comment on Colonel Brandon’s stern demeanour. She glanced over at the Colonel, who was patiently helping Margaret with her cards in a game of Speculation, reading the expressions flitting over his face with a tweak of eyebrow here, a slight tilt of his head there, “No, I don’t know how you find him so,” she said to Mrs Palmer absently. “I think nobody would think Colonel Brandon _affected_ in temperament, but he has much warmth for his friends.”

At supper, Brandon sat between the two sisters, and assiduously cornered some of the nicer dishes set on the table to serve them with. With Marianne distracted by some teasing from Sir John, he turned to her and said “You should eat something, Miss Dashwood. All that nursing has been wearing you out,” and he talked quietly to her about some small matters until Elinor had eaten enough of the supper to realise that she was really quite hungry and clean her plate.

***

The next week, Elinor was returning from her walk when she met the colonel almost staggering under the weight of a heavy parcel that transpired, when he entered the cottage, to be three enormous books with antique type and glorious gold leaf illustrations. 

“This is _The Faerie Queene_ ,” he said to them smiling, carefully laying out the volumes for them to examine. “The bookseller I deal with in London finally found this for me, and I wanted to share the treat. Miss Marianne,” Brandon said, “you should be the first reader—it is always best to read Spenser when it is raining and you are slightly ill. You will like it because there is a lady knight who is very brave and very noble. Miss Margaret (turning a page to show her) I present to you a dragon.”

They sat around the volumes examining the pictures until Marianne and Margaret found something to disagree on and Marianne flounced away in irritation to sit at her little pianoforte, brushed away the small amount of dust upon it, and opened the case with the air of greeting an old friend to begin a savage concerto. Margaret rolled her eyes, their mother looked resigned, and Colonel Brandon shared a comforting glance with Elinor as if to say, “there, I told you you’d get her back.” She ducked her head and went back to examining the glowing art.

There was nothing for it but to invite the man to dinner at which time, of course, her sisters teased their benefactor mercilessly, Brandon taking their raillery with an easy good humour that seemed perfectly natural and unaffected, and Elinor found it hard to remember the reserved soul to whom they had first been introduced. It was an odd thing, she thought, in the after-dinner hour, watching her sisters trade riddles with the colonel, how very quickly in these light spring days he had reached an intimacy with their family after the former politeness of his year-long acquaintance with them. Her mother had always had easy ways and, now, moved by gratitude, was exerting herself to be really pleasing—but it was more than that. Marianne, still weary, was happily accepting another man’s pointer at her feet when she sat in the garden; had accepted another man’s readings of her favourite verse; she had even moved in her sentiments towards the colonel perhaps a little past pity. Margaret had always liked the older man but… Perhaps it was that their mother, who had never really liked being the head of their little household, now saw in Brandon someone who could act as a supporter in the exigencies of navigating an unkind world, had found an ally as she had never found in her step-son.

“What are you thinking, dear Elinor?” her mother asked, as they sat at the table doing some coarse mending that did not need too good a light.

“I am thinking: why is a colonel like plum cake? Their flavour improves over time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dates: There is an incredibly detailed calendar of S&S here, courtesy of Ellen Moody of George Mason University: http://www.jimandellen.org/austen/s&s.calendar.html This puts the setting of the main part of the novel as 1797-98, I am setting this fanfic in 1798 (which affects some details of fashion and what books are popular eg the ‘empire-line’ silhouette that we normally associate with the Austen novels is only just coming into fashion.)
> 
> “It is always best to read Spenser when it is raining and you are slightly ill.” - C. S. Lewis’ opinion of The Faerie Queene: “Beyond all doubt it is best to have made one's first acquaintance with Spenser in a very large --- and, preferably, illustrated --- edition of The Faerie Queene, on a wet day, between the ages of twelve and sixteen; and if, even at that age, certain of the names aroused unidentified memories of some still earlier, some almost prehistoric, commerce with a selection of 'Stories from Spenser', heard before we could read, so much the better."


	2. June

_“Dost thou not suspect my place?”_ Colonel Brandon said roundly, “ _Dost thou not suspect my years? Oh,”_ he cried, his voice squeaky, “ _that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass, though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.—No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow and, which is more, an officer and, which is more, a householder and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to, and a rich fellow enough, go to, and a fellow that hath had losses, and one that hath two gowns and everything handsome about him.—Bring him away.—Oh, that I had been writ down an ass!_ ”

Margaret, who was new to this play, took a moment to digest these words until she suddenly giggled. Brandon winked at her, and kept on reading, animated by the old words and milking the comedy for all he was worth. Marianne smirked at it; Elinor, sitting with them in the shade of the tree with a bit of sewing, smiled, and looked into the distance to rest her eyes.

“Are you coming tomorrow?” Marianne asked when he reached the end of a scene and closed the little book. Margaret leapt up at the sound of a distant bark and bounded away from them.

“No, I must away,” Brandon said. He looked his hands for a moment. “Did your sister tell you I had a ward? A girl called Eliza? I am off to visit her tomorrow, and must take my leave of you now.”

Marianne nodded. “Halloo the house!” came a loud call from the little gate that opened out into the lane, and Sir John was striding in with a pack of dogs at his heels and their little sister hanging on his arm. Brandon nodded awkwardly at both sisters and rose to pay his respects to their mother.

“Here you are, here you are, letters for you all—for you Miss Dashwood, and you Miss Marianne, another beau I expect for the young lady.” Elinor peeked at the direction and sighed inside, for it was her brother John again, and likely to be pressing about Edward’s betrothal; Marianne sat up primly and told their benefactor that he very well knew there was no such person. “As you say, Miss Marianne, as you say,” he said genially, and chucked her under her chin, before swaggering into the house to greet her mother.

Brandon was in the sitting room waiting for her when Elinor came downstairs from settling Marianne in her nap. “Shall we take one last walk before I go, Miss Dashwood?” and she happily agreed.

As they climbed the steep hills above the village, she must have made a noise, for he turned to her. “It is nothing, Colonel. It just occurred to me that this is the first time we’ve been alone together since you arrived back in Barton.”

“I suppose that it is,” he said, tucking her hand comfortably in his arm. “Your family have been very welcoming. I often take a long time to warm to people,” he apologised.

“Colonel?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss Dashwood?”

“What happened when you fought Willoughby?”

“He deloped,” he said gently. “Do you know what that is?” She shook her head. “He fired into the air. Gentlemen will do so, sometimes, when they wish to acknowledge fault without appearing cowards.”

“Did you delope?” she wondered.

“I marked him. I _was_ a soldier.” He looked at her curiously. “You seem, forgive me, Miss Dashwood, you seem a little less regretful at this than the last time we spoke of my appointment…”

“I am. I should say, ‘I am, I suppose,’ but it would be a lie. Forgive me, Colonel, but I feel somewhat differently now that my sister has been so ill that she still needs to sleep during the day like a child, when, when she is so wary of strangers, so shy of people, when she almost— I felt sorry for your ward, of course I did, but the circumstances were more abstract to me then.”

“It is of no moment.”

“Willoughby came to see us, did I tell you? At Cleveland, after you’d left to fetch Mama, he arrived in the middle of the night in a coach and four.”

“Did he indeed?” Brandon’s nostrils flared.

“He was very drunk.”

“I should hope he was not importunate—”

“Only in words. He wanted someone to feel sorry for him, and in the middle of the night, I am ashamed to say that I did. I don’t know why anymore.”

He patted her hand, still tucked in his arm, and they walked on in silence until they came to a crux where the main path was joined by a twisted brambly track. Elinor stopped then. “Shall we take this side path? Not many people do, I think, and there is a very fine view if you’re willing to work for it.”

***

There was an eyrie that Elinor had found, that overlooked the valley. It was high up above the tree line, and there was a cluster of limestone rocks that formed a shelter from the winds; the aspect was so pleasant that she would often rest from her walk up the hill in that little sheltered spot. Colonel Brandon nodded approvingly. “This is very fine, Miss Dashwood,” and he sat down with a sigh. A gentleman, he doffed his coat, pulled a book out of the pocket, and gave her the coat to sit on. He opened the book and found the ribbon that marked their place:

_Pardon, goddess of the night,  
Those that slew thy virgin knight;  
For the which, with songs of woe,  
Round about her tomb they go.  
Midnight, assist our moan;  
Help us to sigh and groan,  
Heavily, heavily:  
Graves, yawn, and yield your dead,  
Till death be uttered,  
Heavily, heavily._

He had a good speaking voice, deep and resonant, and let the words float out into the air.

Elinor sat near him, warming her back on the rock. “Colonel?” she asked. “Might I ask an impertinent question?”

He looked at her curiously.

“Has Edward Ferrars offended you in some way?”

Brandon looked surprised. “No, I can’t think why he might have. He has been most polite on the occasions on which we have spoken. A hard man to know well, I think, but then some of us are.”

“You have not spoken of him in some weeks,” she explained. “Not since Marianne was ill.”

“Ah.” Brandon rolled onto his stomach then, as a school boy might, as if his words could not be spoken to her, but to the vasty air before them. “I should apologise to you about Ferrars. There were some circumstances I had not entirely understood, there was a degree of acquaintance I had not troubled to make myself aware of before offering him the Delaford living. I called on your brother and his wife when last I was in town and understood the situation a little better. Impulsiveness is my particular fault, Miss Dashwood; if I had thought more I would have made different choices,” he added wryly.

“You were being kind,” she said quietly. “I hate fusses so, how should you have known?”

“Is it so very hard to bear?” he asked kindly, looking at her over his shoulder.

Elinor lay down on her stomach as well: for this conversation, telling it only to the wind would do, for she could not bear a fuss and it was hard to keep her composure. “I wish he’d _told_ me,” she said at last. “At Norland I might have imagined that I had wished myself into an attachment where none was there; that I had put myself only in danger; that I had mistaken friendship for something more. But Lucy knew. She had only to hear Edward speak of me and she knew: she _knew_. Call it injured pride, if you will, at her exultation over me. I won’t give her the satisfaction of weeping or fainting or running mad.”

“Or walking about in the rain and getting ill from one’s wet stockings,” he said with a smile. “You wouldn’t do that in grief _or_ jealousy.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” she said, vindicated.

“No,” he went on. “I think you’d quietly pine and stop eating.”

Elinor flushed with ugly shame, held her hands over her face in mortification. She had been noticed. Colonel Brandon’s gentle visits had been not only for her invalid sister’s benefit: those baskets of delicacies from Exeter which had always included a few little somethings that she herself was fond of were not an accident; nor the quiet sensible suggestions that she take some meals on a tray in Marianne’s room and so ‘encourage the invalid to eat;’ nor even the comic readings, a reserved man exerting himself to be humorous; none of these were by chance, she, too, had been noticed.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, fighting to fold her reserve around her again, to regain her hard-fought composure. Elinor knew herself to be an ugly crier. Not for her delicate sparkling eyes or a winsome expression, she just went red and blotchy and swollen and it was this vanity, perhaps more even than the burden of living with three females who dwelled in the heights of sensibility, that had given her a detestation of weeping in public. Brandon’s voice next to her was urgent. “Elinor. Elinor, don’t bury yourself too deeply. It can be the devil of a time finding yourself again.” So she put her face into her hands and _cried._

When she came to herself again, she found a handkerchief proffered, unmonogrammed and very clean, the choice a man might make who did not have the licence to hug her, as her father once might have. She took it and blew her nose noisily. “I hardly ever do this,” she said soggily.

Brandon nudged her arm: “serve God, love _somebody_ , and mend,” he suggested. 

She looked out into the far distance. “I will try if you will,” she said, and her friend reached out a warm brown muscular hand to clasp hers, as knights might, before going into battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the story title might suggest, quotations in this chapter are from Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing_.


	3. July

The next time they saw Colonel Brandon, for he was a man of affairs, was the height of summer; unexpectedly in Barton’s little church. He was sitting with the Middletons and speaking his responses plainly; when she noticed him, he nodded at her. After the service, he paid his respects to her mother as he ought and so naturally, so civilly did he greet her sisters that no one noticed that he had offered her his arm and dropped behind the family party as it walked home.

“I wanted you to know, Miss Dashwood—Elinor—before the gossip reaches you. Mr Ferrars was married in Plymouth last Thursday.”

She nodded. “It was to be expected. Did Edward—did he look happy?”

“The bride was blooming,” Brandon said, “Edward Ferrars did all that was expected of him. He is a hard man to know, I think.”

“I can see a church by daylight,” Elinor said with a sigh, as they passed by the little church yard, feeling the smooth velvet of Brandon’s coat under her fingers.

“Indeed,” he said gravely. 

The vicar spoke to them then, cheerfully, as he did when his sermons were well received, for he was a vain main when in the service of God, and Elinor was able to reply plainly.

And so it was that when several days later, Thomas, their servant, chattered happily about meeting the new Mrs Ferrars in Exeter and how very friendly Mr Edward Ferrars had been when speaking to him from the chaise, Elinor was able to calmly keep working on her needlepoint and let the hysteria of her sister and mother pass on by. 

“How can you be so _calm_ about this?” Marianne remonstrated.

“Colonel Brandon told me this happened last Sunday,” she replied. “Leave it be, Marianne.”

***

“Lady Middleton is expecting to be confined again, but of course you must know that by now,” Elinor said, apprising Colonel Brandon of the local gossip as they walked the next day. “Mrs Jennings and my mother are very sentimental about how very _motherly_ Lady Middleton is when she increases; I confess as someone who has not entered the lists of marriage, I have not the eye to see it.”

Brandon chuckled at her, and lifted her over a stile.

“The Careys have procured a cousin by post, and are all full of the news on when their young man may be expected to arrive. He has been delayed twice so far, so I have no _very_ high expectations of seeing him before the summer is out. Mr Jenkins has been newly released from Cambridge and is being sent around the country to inspect the goods on offer; and we him, I expect.”

“You don’t have very high expectations…?”

“Well, it just seems a terrible chore having to get used to new people. I expect to find him very delightful and all that is pleasing when he arrives—as a young woman in my position ought—but really, the expectations raised by all this correspondence and rumour present a young man so close to perfection in all measures that no mere mortal can ever expect to ascend to it, and if he did, then we would all find him terribly dull.”

As they reached the ridge line, the wind surged around them. Elinor _ought_ , as a young woman exposed to the literature of sensibility, find the bracing air entirely delightful; in fact, it stole the hat off her head and ripped her hair out of its pins, so that by the time they had reached the shelter of a wood, Brandon having had to descend the hill to return her headgear, she was entirely fed up and embarrassed.

“This will never do,” her friend said, watching her trying to scrape hair off her face, and he stepped behind her and, deftly pulling pins out, released her hair completely. She felt the unexpected tug of a comb and turned her head.

“Stay _still_ , Elinor.” A handful of pins was passed to her, and she felt her hair being dressed by gentle, impersonal fingers.

“And what young man are you looking for in your own person? There is more to happiness than doing as you ought, Miss Dashwood.”

She shrugged. “Mutual liking and respect. I can’t see how a marriage can be happy without it.”

“Your point seems fair. ‘But let him be a handsome fellow?’” he asked.

“All cats are grey in the dark,” she said bluntly, “or at least they keep telling us so. No, the point is not an irreducible one. Money or I’ll have none. I don’t mean to sound greedy, Colonel, for I am not. Enough to live on in a simple way without worrying, that would be enough.”

“Your shopping list seems eminently reasonable.”

“The half of Devon with whom I am acquainted do not agree with you,” she said, unspeakably depressed.

“Well, you are too confined, Miss Dashwood. Your current disability of being too clever for your company will not last for ever; if—” he broke off, and Elinor could imagine that If. If _I marry Marianne, I could put fellows in your way_ , because he changed it: “When Mrs Jennings brings you and your sister to town this winter, I will take you driving in Hyde Park so that you may see and be amused by the exquisites. The Macaroni has not yet left our shores,” he said, encouragingly.

“No, I’m done with the marriage market,” she said, feeling the tug and pull at her hair. “I intend to stuff my hair under a cap, and lead the apes to Hell—or Heaven—and then I can sit by the fire with the bachelors, and drink as much wine as I like.”

“Your hair is much too pretty to hide under a cap, Miss Elinor.” 

“How did you learn to dress women’s hair?” she asked curiously.

“I do actually have a sister, Miss Dashwood,” he said. “Pin?” The unspoken “and Eliza” hung in the air between them.

“What was she like? What was the first Eliza like?” She let the hidden thought become plain.

“A regular tatterdemalion,” she could hear the smile in Brandon’s voice, “a hoyden, the bane of birds’ nests. She was a great stealer of apples as I recall. It was best to get her tidied up before Nurse saw her; it saved trouble.” He put his hands on her shoulders to turn her around and looked at her speculatively before pushing some pins in more firmly. “There, I think you would pass our old Nurse, no cap required.” He ducked his head and kissed her, very lightly and was away before she could have anything to say about it.

“There. Matrimonial life _does_ have its compensations, Elinor,” he said. “Men with sense understand your value. The gentleman who sees you as you are will be along soon enough.” Elinor touched her mouth, bemused, rolled her lips together at the odd texture of a man’s bristles. She should say something, but Brandon was off climbing a tree as if nothing had happened and she wondered, then, if some part of him had conflated her with the first Eliza, his childhood friend, conflated the familiarities permitted him, also.

“Colonel?” she said some time later, as they walked home, “how _do_ you come to have a comb in your pocket?”

“My commanding officer was particular and it got to be a habit.”

She nodded in understanding. Sometimes things were just that simple.


	4. August

“I’ve been to the post office to fetch our letters,” Marianne said, her face flushed from the walk. “John is writing to you _again_. I can’t see why he should inflict so many letters upon us, and if he must, why should he not enclose a sovereign under the seal so that at least we would not be incurred the cost of reading them. You should tell him so, as Mother will not.” 

She sat down at the breakfast table and picked at the collation. “Are you still not finished? Colonel Brandon will be here soon.”

Elinor glanced at the clock. “Nearly so, dearest. You have ten minutes to get some food into you before we go, Marianne.”

“Why do we _all_ have to go into Exeter because you and Mother have commissions to make?” Marianne said, picking up a Bath cake and nibbling on it. “I have some books I wanted to read today.”

“Because the Colonel is driving into town today on his own account and offered us all a ride, and because you need some fresh air and a change of company in you. You’ve barely spoken to a soul outside this household since…”

“Since Lady Middleton announced the latest little Middleton is in train,” Marianne interrupted.

“Exactly.”

***

As the bells of Exeter Cathedral rang out over her head: _tin tan din dan bo_ , Elinor read her letter and frowned.

“Is all well, Miss Dashwood?” a voice asked her, and she stuffed the paper in her reticule.

"No. Yes. It's a letter from my brother John. I would rather not discuss it,” she told the colonel.

“Of course,” and he sat on the bench next to her to enjoy the sunshine. The change ringers had been at their work for some hours and she wondered how much longer they might be; Brandon, who was musical, seemed to enjoy the noise at least.

“Did you find everything you needed?” he asked conversationally.

“Oh yes,” she said, “but then we met the Misses Carey in the circulating library and Marianne got to talking novels with them, so I came ahead. Mr Jenkins is come at last,” she said in a voice of august solemnity, “and they are very proud.”

“It will be good for us all to have some new company,” he agreed.

“So. So my brother John—" she suddenly expostulated. “My horrible brother John—"

“Go on,” Brandon said, chuckling at her in understanding.

She retrieved the letter and brandished it at him. “It isn't enough that he spends a page, a whole page that _we_ have to pay for, explaining at length all the difficulties caused by his improvements and pleasure parties at Norland which make it impossible, simply _impossible_ , for him and Fanny to receive visitors anytime this summer—as if we were importunate poor relations who had been _hinting_ them, but then he says—" She breathed out sharply.

“Is it very bad?”

“Oh, it transpires that John has the greatest respect for my _puissance—_ if not my virtue—for I am believed capable of splitting asunder that which God has joined—all without seeing either of the parties in question since March, mark you. Because all this is so dreadfully trying on the nerves of an old woman who likes to have hysterics as her primary recreation. _Her_ needs are paramount. And then—"

“I can guess...?”

“ _Yes_. Exactly. And if not that, I am to use my influence on you to expel them from Delaford living to add penury to their troubles. As if _I_ would ask such a thing, or _you_ would do it.” She growled, actually growled. “They judge us by themselves.”

Brandon put his hand on the bench next to her, to show that he would have touched her hand in friendship, if it had been acceptable to do so. His voice was soft and apologetic. “I am sorry, but you have my character aright, Miss Dashwood. I wouldn’t break such a promise even for my friend.” He looked up and past her and his face warmed. “Your sister is looking well. There is much more colour in her cheeks these past few weeks.”

She looked up as well, and let herself be charmed by the sight of Marianne and the two Carey girls giggling together as they walked into the cathedral square. Brandon stood to greet them, and they clustered around the colonel, a tall black ginger headed crow; or even a benign sheepdog surrounded by spring lambs, carefully overlooking them while they told him their news. 

Mrs Dashwood and Margaret approached from another quarter, her mother graceful in her gratitude for the ride into the city, the colonel self-deprecating; then he settled the four Dashwood women into the barouche he had brought from Delaford, climbed into the box with his groom and they were away for home.

“Where are we going?” Marianne asked, for the carriage had taken a different road out of the city than they were used to.

“I thought as it was such a fine day, and our party is in no hurry, that we could take a way home that is more picturesque,” Brandon said over his shoulder, and Marianne sat up happily.

Elinor looked at her sister and smiled, and put the odious letter out of her head. They had all three of them survived their travails. It was time for things to be easy; it was time to enjoy the summer.

***

Mr Reginald Jenkins was duly displayed to the neighbourhood and, after judicious consideration, found to be an amiable and unaffected young man. Elinor was thoughtful enough to consider that one of his charms was the possession of his own independence; nonetheless, the families of Barton and its nearby villages had decided to be pleased by him, and the young man diligently endeavoured to be pleasing in his turn.

At Barton Park, the arrival of a newcomer put the residents in a state of ecstasy and, drawn by the triple horses of a stranger to these parts, who had as yet to taste the elegancies of Lady Middleton’s table, and who, moreover, provided the raw material a matchmaker so desperately desired, the pleasure parties reached a frequency and grandeur not seen since the Dashwoods had arrived in the district.

On the day they went to the seaside, Sir John _really_ exerted himself; Elinor concluded that he must have successfully summoned all the county families that dwelled in the environs of Exeter because in the court of the park there was barely room for all the parties assembled there to settle their horses, and gossip, and call gaily to each other. In the mob of horses and open carriages, she felt someone hold her arm and lift her, and then she was in the brightly painted curricle of Mr Reginald Jenkins. He smiled happily to see her, and clucked at his horses to walk on. 

“I don’t think I entirely understand the connection between your family and Colonel Brandon?” he asked as they drove over roads a little dusty from the sun, “is he your cousin?”

“No, not at all. He has had an attachment to my sister Marianne for a long time,” she explained it. “I suppose we all got used to thinking of him as our brother.”

“Ah,” and Mr Jenkins’ face cleared. “That explains it. He has taken a sincere interest in my affairs. A pleasant fellow.”

Elinor turned around in the curricle to look behind her. Brandon was guiding the barouche behind them, with Margaret on the box, kindly helping her hold the reins, and her mother and sister and two Carey girls chatting happily on the seats. She waited until he looked up at her and _glared_.

***

“Mr Jenkins,” Elinor asked, “might I trouble you for that shell by your feet?”

He bent and returned it to her in a grand gesture, a question in his eyes.

“I use them to mix my paints,” she told him, and he made a game of searching them out for her, presenting them with flowery bows.

They passed by Margaret who was gazing out at the sea happily, singing in a clear bright voice:

_I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear  
But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear  
The King of Spain's daughter came to visit me,  
And all for the sake of my little nut tree_

“You three Dashwood sisters could pass for the King of Spain’s daughters,” Mr Jenkins said, “with your dark hair and your dark flashing eyes. Or wild gypsies—you are so exotic to these parts.”

She cocked her head at him. “We have some connections in Wales, if you go back far enough. Don’t ask me to pronounce the name of the town, for I cannot.”

“So do I,” he said cheerfully. “That makes us _really_ English. Sir John told me when I first arrived that there were some dashed pretty females he’d installed in his little cottage.”

“I hope the truth was not _too_ terribly outraged on this occasion,” she said sweetly, and left him to sort out the double negative on his own.

They were going to have to stop dressing Margaret in her comfortable play dresses soon, Elinor thought sadly. She, too, would be stuffed into the clothes of a woman and put on display for visiting gentlemen. On this particular day, she found the thought too depressing for words.

After their picnic dinner, the gentlemen of the party formed an informal cricket match on the long flat beach left by the departing tide. Bowled out after a frantic sandy dive, Brandon walked up to the blankets where the ladies sat and kept her company while he got his breath back.

“Have you heard from Eliza lately?” she asked.

“Yes, I have a letter,” and he rummaged for it in the pocket of the coat he had laid down. She would like to meet Eliza, Elinor thought, for more than her friend’s sake; for the girl had a tart and entertaining voice in her letters, and a lively intellect that saw people’s weakness and laughed at them in fondness; in this case, she was ruthlessly merciless about the foibles and inconsistencies of the family she was staying with.

Elinor laughed. “Your ward has some very wicked thoughts.”

“Yes, so did her mother, actually. They both matched it with such kindness—they were always bringing home wounded birds and selecting from the worthy poor people they thought deserved better patronage. Or (smiling) the unworthy poor on a few memorable occasions. And such open affection for their friends,” he said. “Oh, that reminds me,” and he rummaged again in his coat to produce a handful of white shells. “In case you need any for your painting.” She accepted them with thanks and he went on. “I saw you walking with Mr Jenkins earlier. He seemed a good conversationalist?”

She scowled at him. 

“He has a very good character,” Brandon said encouragingly, “the people who know him speak well of him; more than just the Careys, that is. An army friend of mine spoke highly of him in a letter; and he has a good degree from Cambridge, they say.”

“I don’t need you to matchmake for me, Colonel Brandon,” she said, beginning to colour. She should be angrier with him than she was, she thought. The colonel’s interest in her affairs without the aegis of a marriage tie or blood relationship was impertinent and he knew it as well as she did. He did deserve a set down, he did. She crossed her arms and glared but was silent. If her _own_ brother had taken such an interest in investigating the reputation of John Willoughby, much of her family’s heartbreak might have been spared.

On the field of war before them, Marianne strode up to the wicket and picked up the bat, a glint in her eye. Jenkins, unwillingly to go easy on a girl, hurled a roundarm at her and she hit it handily, kilting up her skirts and lighting out for the other wicket.

“Oh, good show!” Brandon called. He looped long arms and ropey wrists around his knees. “I’m glad you asked about Eliza actually, because we are starting to discuss what her future might look like, and I cannot think of any easy choices. She doesn’t want to give up her baby—and why should she?—but she cannot stay on that little farm forever, and how could she go back to her old acquaintance with it in her care? I’ve gone off paid fosterers as well.” He looked wistfully at Marianne, exhorting the other batsman. “The least bad choice seems to be to install them both at Delaford and wear the scandal, but then how could Eliza marry?” He rubbed his face. “I’m sorry to burden you so, Miss Dashwood; I’m not much used to having people to confide in.”

Elinor nodded, thinking about it. “Mrs Jennings would tell you to buy her an apprenticeship and have done—but Eliza sounds far too clever to spend her days making lace or trimming hats. It’s a pity you can’t enrol her at one of the universities; that might keep her so busy she wouldn’t get bored and into trouble again.”

She saw then a most rare sight: Colonel Brandon threw back his head and _laughed._ “Or a pair of colours, perhaps. I used to like getting junior officers like Eliza, if I could keep them alive long enough to be steadied. I shall write to her forthwith suggesting she cut her hair and change her name to Polly Oliver.”

Marianne’s fellow batsman was run out then, to disappointed sighs. Brandon got up and, moving easily, spoke kindly to her before taking his place to bowl. Marianne brushed the sand off her skirts with great conviction, and took her own stand as a fielder.

The day ended, as Elinor had known it would, with supper and a private ball at Sir John’s park. Margaret and the little Middletons were much occupied in sorting their shells and seaweed; the Carey sisters and her mother were discussing some new fashion; and Marianne had taken up her favourite occupation: arguing with Brandon.

Mr Jenkins came to sit next to her with some tea. “Those two are so very spirited about their disagreements, Miss Dashwood. Are you sure they’re courting?”

Elinor laughed, and gazed at them fondly. “Oh, there’s a merry war between them. Brandon and Marianne never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit.”

“Oh,” he said, looking worried and clearly not identifying her quote.

Marianne’s self-improvement campaign had devolved into a single-minded quest to best Colonel Brandon in debate. She had great agility of mind in these talks they had, she threw up sparkling theses and brought in unexpected facts to bolster her arguments; Brandon’s thoughts moved more slowly, he made a buttress with his words, a solid fort that often proved sound after successive waves of attack; the soundness of which, when it crumbled, made Marianne all the prouder. Her reasons for arguing might be self-interested, but the exercise was doing her mind a lot of good.

“I think I’d be quite terrified being married to someone as clever as I was,” Mr Jenkins added. “I’d always worry I was being laughed at.”

There was not much to say to that, for it was a common belief. Elinor did wonder, though, on evenings like this, on the degree of attachment Brandon now felt to Marianne. Her sister had taken to treating the older man with the licence that pretty girls had with their seniors, to tease and flirt and josh in an unserious manner, and Brandon accepted this behaviour as genially—as brotherly— as he took it from Margaret.

Marianne took her fall this evening with good nature, the sparkle in her eyes that of a youthful knight who, having been unhorsed by a superior, fully expected to try again the next day. She settled herself at the pianoforte with a flounce of her skirts and began to play a dance tune—Mr Jenkins offered Elinor his hand and drew her up into a reel, and the spinning jostled all these thoughts from her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “picking up a Bath cake and nibbling on it” – a buttery caraway flavoured bun risen by the foam off beer. Apparently fashionable late Georgian/Regency breakfasts were quite light, and featured a lot of buns and cakes. https://apps.lib.umich.edu/blogs/beyond-reading-room/dining-jane-austen-i-breakfast-georgian-england
> 
> “They were going to have to stop dressing Margaret in her comfortable play dresses soon” – The neoclassical high waisted style first became popular in little girls’ dresses, as a token of the changing conception of childhood in the later 18th C (before this, they were just dressed as miniature adults); the change, of course, gives us a new clothing code – before older women started wearing the style as well. Trousers as a style also started out as more popular in children’s clothes that was later adopted by their elders. https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/little-girls-regency-dresses/
> 
> “Jenkins, unwillingly to go easy on a girl, hurled a roundarm at her” – 18th C cricket used underarm bowling by default (probably cross-pollination from the sport of Bowls.) The roundarm was just starting to come in in the 1790s and was a bit controversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundarm_bowling
> 
> “…change her name to Polly Oliver.” – I’m cheating the dates on this reference (the first textual reference to this ballad is 1840. I’m not even a bit sorry ;-)


	5. September

The summer was fading, Elinor thought, as she and Brandon continued their walks into the hills. The wind coming off the sea had a bite to it, the orchard crops were coming in, in the field through which they walked the rams were, to be indelicate, being put to cover the ewes, and they passed on by, forbearing to talk to the farmer of such an unladylike subject. They reached their eyrie, high up on the hill, that little sheltered spot where the sunshine graced them and the wind did not. Brandon flopped down on his front with a relieved sigh, an overgrown schoolboy looking out at the view. Elinor sat next to him, her back against a sun warmed rock and started a daisy chain. Alas, her friend returned to a familiar subject, her opinion of the young Mr Jenkins of whom he seemed to think highly, and eventually she was frank with him.

“Mr Jenkins’ hands are so cold,” Elinor said. “And damp. It would be like kissing a fish. If a man is going to lay hands on you, he should at least have warm hands, should he not?”

“Ah,” he said enlightened. “He has other fine qualities. And a good estate in Kent.”

She shredded her daisies. “Then some other young lady may enjoy them. I’ve seen enough women marry for position then find they must bear the fruits of their marital infelicity. Not for me.” She smiled. “My spinster's cap awaits.”

“Is this now your primary salient in the marriage wars?”

“Well, I don't know," she said, "the sheep don't much seem to like it.”

Brandon coughed, embarrassed, but perhaps less scandalised than he ought to be. “People indulge the rites of Venus somewhat differently, Miss Elinor.”

“But how does anyone _know?_ ” she speculated. “Everyone is supposed to be a virgin on their wedding night, and then good luck to you. Is there a special course of instructional reading we’re all given to undertake beforehand?”

Now Brandon really was embarrassed. “Not exactly. Brothers and sisters give advice, usually. Some men have mistresses, before times.”

She coloured, but pursued her quarry. “Have _you_ had a mistress, Brandon?”

Gravely, he replied, “I have. The last was some years ago. Some years before I met your family.”

“Does—did—does Edward—?”

His answer was careful and qualified. “While I have not discussed the particulars of the case with Mr Ferrars, and have received no information from other parties, my understanding of his character is probably not.”

“Has _my brother_ had a mistress?”

Brandon answered slowly. “I once met him in London with a woman he chose not to introduce. I thought him callow for it.” He looked up, “Elinor, I pray you, do _not_ repeat this conversation to your mother and sisters, for they would cut me, and there would be a breach with Sir John.”

She stared blankly into the valley before her, her thoughts racing on the easy conspiracies that men kept; that they did not even need to _like_ each other to keep. “Has _Sir John_ had a mistress?” she asked, trying to imagine the kindly gentleman as the protagonist of a cartoon of bawds in the newspaper. Brandon was rooting around in the grass, pretending to ignore her. At last, “leave it well enough alone, Elinor.”

She sat up. “I can’t believe _Mrs Jennings_ wouldn’t—”

“Mrs Jennings does know,” Brandon replied diffidently. “She winks at it because she sees her daughter happy and well provided for, and she loves her son-in-law. Some families make accommodations for each other.”

“Huh,” Elinor said. “Did you tell all this to Eliza Williams?”

“No,” he said, his deep voice regretful. “I should have, I think, but how does anyone raise the question? Except with _you,_ obviously,” he added with affection, and she threw her daisies at him.

“If you married _Marianne_ , would you—?”

“No,” Brandon said, surely, with certainty. “No, I wouldn’t. The man who marries Marianne Dashwood will love her wholly and alone. She would never see such a thing as other than betrayal.”

She was silent on their walk home, for there was much to think about.

***

“There,” said Elinor with satisfaction, and put down her brush.

“You should take some tea, Miss Dashwood,” came a voice, and she jumped. Colonel Brandon was seated on the settee surrounded by a welter of cups, and sewing, and ladies’ magazines.

“Good gracious, Brandon,” she said. “How long have you been there?”

He glanced at the clock. “Perhaps two hours? (Smiling) every time one of us addressed you, you muttered ‘yes, of course,’ and went back to your painting. Margaret has obtained your agreement to make her a dress in Lincoln green, of which I thought perhaps you might wish to be advised.”

She rubbed out the crick of her neck and accepted the proffered cup of tea gratefully. “Where is everyone?”

“Outside, talking to Sir John. I expect he’s inviting you all to dinner, he mentioned some such intent this morning,” and she could hear the bark of dogs outside the window in agreement. “May I see?” he asked, gesturing to the sketches and paints on the desk before her and, colouring, she turned the board holding her watercolour towards him.

It was a scene from their trip to the seaside a few weeks earlier. Margaret and Brandon were shoeless, stockingless, coatless with their feet ankle deep in the water peering at a crab; Marianne, with her skirts scooped up and pointing imperiously, was standing on a rock supervising; the whole group was balanced against one another, the textures of the sky subtle and illuminating. The colonel did not have the sort of sophisticated aesthetic sensibilities that led to coos of “how exquisite” before a piece of art was put down never to be noticed again, nor even took a gruff gentleman’s licence to grunt “very nice” and return to his cards; he merely gave her artwork his full attention. He studied it for some minutes, and looked up with a smile. “It’s very good, Elinor. I liked that day.”

“When you finally convince Marianne to marry you, I’ll give it to you as a wedding present,” she said gruffly, for the scene had seemed innocent when she’d sketched it; now, with one of the subjects present, it made her feel like a voyeur.

“I think the lady might have some opinions on the matter of her own, Miss Dashwood,” he said, smiling. “Shall we go outside and take some air? I will miss our walks when you marry, Elinor. I hope you find some fellow who lives near Dorsetshire, so that I may befriend him and come for visits.”

There wasn’t much to say to that, Elinor thought, as she followed him outside. Brandon might parade all the Mr Jenkins of the world past her, but his own interest in her family had been remarked on by more than Sir John and Mrs Jennings and her hateful brother. Until Brandon grew bored and ceased to visit, or the residents of the Park grew bored and ceased to gossip, or, less likely with each passing day, Marianne decided she loved him after all—onlookers were given to making the same conclusions about the Colonel’s attachments as her brother had. She ought to send him away, she ought to really, but… she would miss their walks as well. All those old stories about princesses being captured by dragons and imprisoned in towers—they all seemed to expect the knight to be the hero of the story and yet, sometimes, having a dragon pacing around your dooryard was what was best when you needed space and you needed _time_ to let your bruised heart mend a little; when you needed a slow meandering sunshiney summer. Yes, she would miss their walks as well, she thought. She accepted his arm and walked down the lane to their landlord and his bouncing pack of dogs where Margaret had convinced the older man to play Knights and Dragons, and Sir John charged, roaring at her, while the girl giggled and fended him off with a wooden sword.

***

“Colonel Brandon, would you help me construe this passage?” Marianne’s voice was sweet and clear, a net of argument just starting to unwind itself out of her mouth, as the rest of the evening party settled into a game of cards.

Brandon was very grave when he saw the passage to which she referred. “The writer lived an unhappy life, Miss Marianne.”

“But do you agree that men ‘act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them in a state of childhood?’ That the ‘fascinating graces’ desired in women of our class traps them in infancy, unable to stand alone? That the beauties of our accomplishments trap us in a gilded cage of our own decoration?”

“I agree that the situation of women in this world is very unjust, and the educations provided to women of the gentry emphasise the aesthetic. As a lover of art and music, I can say that I would be sorry if there were less of it in the world,” he said eventually. Then: “from where did you receive this book, Miss Marianne?”

“It was sent me by a friend,” she said, her chin held high. “Do you object to my reading it, Colonel?”

“I have not the right,” he said quietly, but he was grave all the same.

It was only later when the talk had changed to cards and art and the doings of the Middletons up the lane that Elinor was able to see the book they had discussed. She opened the book to its title page: _A Vindication of the Rights of Women._

“Why did you mind the book?” Elinor asked him the next day on their walk.

“I do not have the right to tell your sister what to read, Miss Dashwood,” he said. “It is not my place.”

“But why did you mind it?”

“The _Vindication_ is an interesting read, Miss Dashwood. I went to a lecture by the author once, and it was extremely thought provoking, although I believe that Wollstonecroft’s utopia of everyone living on their little idyllic farms has more of aesthetism than reality—you should ask Miss Marianne to lend it you if she will. There are worthy thoughts on education that I believe you will appreciate. Her travel writings are also of interest.”

She frowned at him.

“The author tried to take her own life, Elinor,” he said gently. “She had a child out of wedlock—because God is mysterious it was the _legitimate_ daughter that killed her—was a friend to revolutionaries—she almost lost her head to the guillotine because she was intimate with the wrong faction of them; she embraced radical politics. Mrs Godwin lived a troubled life. Life is unchancy to those living in the borderlands.”

“Who says such things?” Elinor asked, “her enemies?”

“Her husband says such things. Because he loved her.”

***

Elinor woke in the dark.

She was a young woman accustomed to rising with the sun and the blackness of her room disturbed her. She lay there, trying to identify the sound that had broken her sleep: there, a tree branch against the window? a broken door? Marianne in the room next door in need of aid?

She bundled a shawl around herself in the chill of predawn and coaxed a candle into life from the almost dead fire and walked to the room next door, fearing the worst. It was, but no fever. Her sister was dressed already, in the dark, and was ransacking her drawers; the little sum of money left from her quarterly allowance sat on the bureau; one small volume was allowed for reading material.

“Marianne, what are you doing?”

“My actions should be clear in their intent, Elinor,” the girl said. “I am packing so that I can be at the crossroads in time for the stage to Bristol.”

Elinor shook her head, still half asleep. “What? Why Bristol?”

“Because,” her sister said patiently, “it’s the best way to Edinburgh. And I have an appointment there which I am anxious to keep.”

“Have you _lost yourself?_ After all this, you’re running away with a man? Marianne, what has happened to you, that you have so little fear of consequences?”

“Oh, no,” Marianne said, her eyes fever-bright. “I would never run away with a _man_. Of that lesson, we are well acquainted.”

“No man—we—” Elinor rubbed her eyes trying to force her sluggish brain into wakefulness. “Who is we—?” A thought came into her head and she looked up. “Oh no, you wouldn’t—” as Marianne spoke over her.

“Yes. Eliza Williams and I. We are done with living our lives subject to the whims of _men_. She and I against the world is an alliance I like much better, sister dear.”

Elinor sat on the bed, watching her sister stuff shifts and stockings into her carpet bag. “It used to be you and I against the world, Marianne.”

“Was it? Not for many months, Elinor. Dearest. You’ve been long gone from me, except as I present a problem for you; our old intimacy is gone, and I do not see how it may be recovered. Perhaps you can tell me when last you confided in me, Elinor, for I cannot recall. Well, I cut the knot; I’m taking myself away. Consider this my act of love for you.”

It felt like a body blow. The worst part, the very worst, was the feeling that these words had been rehearsed, revised, refined into patness.

“And what will you live on?” Elinor asked, trying to think of some reasonable impediment. “Who will keep you?”

“I have my fifty pounds a year; Eliza has her hundred: it will be enough to live on quietly until we start earning.”

“Brandon settled that money on Eliza.”

“Why shouldn’t he? It’s her mother’s money he lives on.”

“And are you really going to travel all the way to Scotland with a young child? In a stage-coach, Marianne, have you really thought this through?”

Marianne avoided her gaze. “Brandon isn’t going to let Eliza keep her baby anyway. It might as well be now, on her terms.”

“He didn’t say that—”

“He won’t—”

“He didn’t _say_ that. He said if she put her baby into fosterage she would have a chance to marry, to live a respectable life. He gave her the choice,” Elinor said roughly. “He offered her his own home in which to raise her child. _Marianne_. Can you imagine the cruelty, the, the improvident _cruelty_ , of forcibly separating a child from her mother? When her own mother tried so hard to keep her? Do not misuse our friend so, you are capable of more gratitude than that.”

“Gratitude? That’s an interesting word, sister, dearest. I will not be married off to a man who is of the years to be my father out of _gratitude_ ,” Marianne snarled, trying to wedge one final article of clothing in her bag and forcing it closed. “I’ll not spend the rest of my life living with someone to whom I must be grateful. It is too much to bear.”

“If I let you go, Marianne,” Elinor said, pronouncing her words with vicious exactitude, “you will have to be _grateful_ to me for _ever_.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Elinor quietly dressed, and went downstairs. In the silence of the greying dawn, not even the servants had risen, and she sat at her drawing table picking up first a pencil, then a brush, only to drop them down again. She was lost to herself for some time, dimly aware of the bolt on the front door being opened, of the slow stirrings of the servants rising and opening the house for the day. She watched the light from without her window slowly lighten; she should paint this she supposed, the way the clouds in the dreadful sky altered with the rising sun, she should paint this awful sublimity, but she did not care to.

Thomas announced that she had a visitor and she turned her head sharply. Colonel Brandon was standing there gravely. “I must take my leave of you and your family, Miss Dashwood,” he said, his face sober. He touched the pocket where he kept his letters. “Some family matters—Eliza. I have to go.”

“She and Marianne are taking the stage north to Edinburgh,” she said simply. “There is no man in the case, not this time.”

Brandon considered this for a time, then nodded. “I will go.”

Elinor rose and climbed the stairs to her sister’s room, emptied the pillows from the cases, reached under the mattress, checked for loose floorboards. Finally, she found the letters she searched for, tucked up in the illuminated volumes of _The Faerie Queene_ , the topmost letter the newest dated, the most indiscreet:

_Marianne,_

_I shall do as you say; in three days we will see each other for the first time, and hopefully for all time._

_I trust you, my Lady Britomart. ‘It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love, than never to love’_

_Your dearest Eliza or, I should say,_

_Amoretta_

“Oh, Marianne, you stupid girl.” she whispered, letting the letters fall on the bed. She contemplated the likely fate of two young girls making their way in the world with only each other for protection. “You stupid, stupid girls.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “welter of cups, and sewing, and ladies’ magazines.” – one of those random etymological details – why do we use the word ‘magazine’ for a gun component, a periodical, and, if you’re French, a shop? They’re all from the same Arabic word ‘makhazin’ for a storehouse (especially when used for ammunition.) There was a publication called _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ in 1731 meaning a miscellany of material, and the name stuck. https://www.etymonline.com/word/magazine
> 
>  _A Vindication of the Rights of Women_ \- by Mary Wollstonecraft, radical feminist. The short version is that she had a lot of thoughts about the deficiencies of the education allotted to women and argued that if men and women received the same education they would equally prosper - this including women being more rational and therefore more competent mothers. The posthumous _Memoir of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women_ was published in the year this fanfic was set and written by her husband, William Godwin, as an act of love. The frank discussions of her suicide attempts and extra-marital affairs absolutely destroyed Mary Wollstonecraft’s reputation. Brandon has clearly read this; Marianne, who is a bit less worldly, might not have yet. She is quoting from Wollstonecraft in this chapter.
> 
> “It is far better to be often deceived than never to trust; to be disappointed in love, than never to love.” – a quote from Wollstonecraft’s _Vindication._
> 
> Lady Britomart and Amoretta – both characters from _The Faerie Queene_. Britomart is a lady knight questing for her true love whom she saw in a magic mirror; she saves Amoret from a wicked sorcer called Busirane who captures her on her wedding night. No, I haven’t read the whole of FQ – Wikipedia is my friend. :-)


	6. October

“Elinor—” Her mother was sitting at the work table frozen, an opened letter in her hand, a bare scribble. Elinor snatched it away.

_Mrs Dashwood, I write this in haste so that it might make the post. I have found your daughter and she is safe. I have undertaken to make arrangements for her future care, which I will discuss with you on my return._

_Your obdt svt,_

_Brandon_

“What does this _mean?”_ Elinor asked, wrathfully. Her mother only shook her head.

It was weeks before they heard from Colonel Brandon again. Their runaway was silent on her journey, to wherever it might be. The carriage came after it was full dark, and Elinor and her mother jumped when they heard the knock on the door. After weeks of listening for messengers or, perhaps, an errant sister, they both were stretched too thin.

Brandon was grey when he was led inside, slightly weaving on his feet, and Elinor wondered exactly how much posting about the country he had been doing. “Marianne?” her mother asked, dismayed, for no one followed the Colonel into their small parlour.

Brandon bowed, as a soldier reporting a defeat. “She is safe, madame. At her request, and at my ward’s, I took the liberty of finding them lodgings in a respectable house. Miss Marianne gave me this letter for you.” He proffered the little bundle of paper. “With your permission, Mrs Dashwood, I will call tomorrow morning and explain.”

Mrs Dashwood snatched the letter with a cry and sank down at the writing desk, a small woman with huge eyes. When had her mother become so frail, Elinor wondered? She snatched her shawl and ran after Brandon who was seeing himself out. 

It was full dark without the house. There was a post chaise in the lane with a groom holding horses that tossed their heads, the gleam of a night lantern. “ _What happened?_ ” she cried.

Brandon walked back to her, the night bringing out the crags of his face, the stone face of a soldier, but his voice was gentle. “I followed Miss Marianne and Eliza north; I finally found them at Manchester, travelling together. There was an enormous scene—in a private parlour,” he cautioned, “and I agreed to escort them to Scotland. They have taken lodgings with a respectable woman who knows to send for me if there are any problems.” 

“That’s— I don’t understand.”

“Nothing would have brought them back bar a Bow Street Runner and a horse escort, Elinor. Do you want that for your sister?”

“And you _let_ them?”

He shook his head. “No. We spent hours wrangling this out, this way and that, how to accommodate their wishes without disgracing you and Margaret. Your sister has agreed to a fictional marriage to some lieutenant from my old regiment, which gives me an excuse to be interested in their welfare. She can invent a tragic death in a couple of years and go on to live a merry widowhood with her good friend and companion, Eliza. They have more money between them than most spinsters and widows; I expect they will make it work.”

She breathed out slowly, as if all her bones had been melted into candlewax and burned down. “Are you sorry you settled all that money on Eliza?” she asked finally.

“Never. She might do what I don’t like—often she does—but this way she has a chance to come home. I would have settled money on you as well, if I could have married you,” he said, shaking his head, distracted. “Enough of pin money and jointures and divorce allowances—coercion by money kills affection faster even than poverty.” 

“ _What_ did you say?” Elinor asked suddenly. 

He shook his head. “I said nothing. It has been a long journey and I am tired.” 

“I don’t think so…” 

“Go to bed, Elinor. Your sister is safe,” and he walked away into the gathering storm. 

“Fine!” she shouted after him. “Run away! Just like Marianne!”

***

Like a rolling wave, a great tide that emerged from the shaking of the ground beneath the ocean and, drawing the weight of the world into itself, bowled relentlessly over the homes and farms of innocents, the storm broke over the village of Barton. Their little cottage shuddered in the wind that night, and Elinor sat up in her bedroom listening to the soughing and the rattle of the windows. When a reluctant dawn finally lightened the sky, the rain continued hard, the kind of settled heaviness that even Marianne would have resisted going out in. 

It was raining, and there was nothing to mend: not even the servants’ clothes.

As she waited at home, wondering when the Colonel would bring himself to brave the wild weather, Elinor ransacked the drawers of her room—their mending basket had long since been emptied by worried hands seeking something to do while they waited for some news of Marianne. Finally, she produced an old and worn chemise from the bottom of her clothes press and ripped it in one long satisfying tear, and settled to her work downstairs with—not satisfaction—but purpose.

It was well past noon when the Colonel finally arrived to account for himself. Elinor was just starting to seam her third tear, and Margaret had long since given up asking her normally patient sister for help with her own needlework, perhaps fearing for her own linen. Elinor stood up suddenly when Thomas greeted the visitor, but Brandon did not speak to her, he merely nodded briefly and followed Thomas into the _other_ sitting room where he was closeted with her mother for well over an hour. For much of it, there was crying, and, after a few minutes, she directed her little sister to practice her exercises on Marianne’s pianoforte so at least the younger girl wouldn’t have to sit and listen to their mother weeping so, a proud woman grown suddenly old.

“Miss Dashwood?” The Colonel was there before her, all of a sudden, turning his hat around and around in his hands. He forced a smile. “I’m afraid I must take my leave of you.”

“But you were going to put a roof on my tree house—” Margaret protested, from the piano.

“Enough.” Elinor quelled her sister with a glare.

She breathed deeply, beyond mortified by the circumstances they found themselves in. Only a lifetime of ingrained courtesy could keep her holding her composure through the next few minutes without weeping like her mother. “Colonel Brandon, I—Colonel—”

“Yes, Miss Dashwood?”

“Colonel, as the rain has lightened for now, would you grant me the privilege of one last walk?”

He bowed formally, as if he had asked her to dance, and they escaped to the outside air.

***

It looked like the storm had passed, thankfully. The weak sun brought out the pastures of the valley, the timber of the hills, the little cottages of the village in bejewelled splendour. The lanes would be dreadfully dirty after this long rain, and she directed Brandon up into the hills, to their favourite wooded walk where, even sheltered from the wind as this grove had been, tree limbs were broken and lesser saplings had fallen.

“Marianne blamed me for her departure, did she tell you?” Elinor said. “She said I’d gone away from her months ago. My sister.” She could barely conceal the sob in her voice.

“We always know how to hurt the people we love the most,” Brandon said gently. “It’s far easier to speak poniards to friends—we know their weaknesses.”

Elinor sobbed again, thinking of her own words. “You are very wise.”

“Only in retrospect, Miss Dashwood,” the Colonel said, showing her a twisted, rueful smile. “I’ve some words of my own I wish I could take back. It’s been such a difficult year,” he sighed, “for everyone. Fatigue is making us all too open with each other.”

Openness and candour were generally considered to be virtues, Elinor thought, and yet she had never found it so. Never at all. How this all would fadge she had no conception, and the only thing for which she could be grateful was that her friend had the grace to be silent and let the words come when they would.

“If I married you,” she said suddenly, thrusting her words out as if they had been arguing for hours, “you could take Eliza’s baby out of fosterage and raise her at Delaford.” 

“I could,” he agreed. 

“Would you?” 

“Yes. I like children.” 

They walked a few more minutes in silence. “If I married you, people would say I was marrying you for position—and that you were marrying me because you could not get my sister.” 

“Do you care what people think?” 

“Mostly.” 

“Today, care about what you think.” 

“ _Would_ you marry me because you could not get Marianne?” 

“No.” She glanced back where he was frowning with dismay. “I can’t explain it exactly. I love different people for different reasons. I don’t find my happiness tied up in one and only one person.” 

“That isn’t good enough.” 

He shook his head. “Marianne is light and fire and passion; you could warm your hands on her. You are my friend: peacefulness and ease. Do you think that’s nothing? I was cursed by the fairy of silence at my christening, Elinor, there are few in this world I can talk to so easily.” He stood in the rain, the cold droplets slicking his hair and sliding down the back of his collar. “When you marry, Elinor, I will try to be happy for you, because I would like to see you settled with one who values you, established. But I would grieve also, for I would be sorry to lose my friend.” 

He held his hand to her to help her over a stile, apologetic. “If you married me, Elinor Dashwood, you would see Edward Ferrars every day, the houses are so close. It’s too much to bear.”

“Are you God?” she asked harshly. “How is it given you to know what another may bear?” He shrugged, unhappy.

They walked longer through the sodden wood, for perhaps half an hour as the rain abated and Elinor became flushed with the heat of the walk, unbuttoned her coat to ease the tightness in her chest. They came to a fallen tree, one of the great oaks that had fallen years before, that formed the best bridge over the little stream that swelled in the rains, and Brandon wordlessly extended his hand to help her climb it. Elinor forgot to leave go his hand, and they walked across the bridge one in front of the other, connected by a palmer’s kiss. “If you married me,” she said suddenly, “you could kiss me again.” 

Brandon sighed, as he jumped down and extended his arms again to help her descend. “At least I haven’t put you off _all_ thoughts of matrimony.”

“You are very stupid sometimes,” Elinor said, looking off into the far distance. “I said I wanted you to kiss me.”

Brandon’s eyes flickered. The sun had come out on that grey day and it lit the crystalline droplets that bedewed his face, his eye lashes. He reached his hands to her coat and resettled the lapels carefully, bit his lip, then he bent his head and kissed her, gently and undemanding. Elinor’s hands reached to her friend’s face, shyly tugging away the straggles of his wet hair, and he kissed her again, more insistent. She breathed, considering the feeling of bristles against her mouth, the smell of a man close to, of skin, the warm muscular hand that touched her waist and slid up the protective armour of the stays hiding her bosom, the gentle caress of fingertips running along the neckline of her dress, finding the layers of wool and buckram and cotton and her soft skin underneath. She swallowed hard.

Brandon drew back. “Elinor Dashwood, would you marry me?” he whispered.

She nodded, and reached to adjust his own coat, to pull him closer to her. “I would.”

They walked home into the valley together, hand in hand, helping each other over the rough paths. Sometimes it could just be easy.


	7. Epilogue

At Barton Cottage, there were no excuses anymore for coming home with wet stockings even when the weather was fair: they had all had their fright. Elinor was hustled into her room to change her clothes with many tuttings from both her mother and the maidservant.

“What were you and Colonel Brandon talking of so long at the gate?” Mrs Dashwood asked as she fussed about Elinor’s wet hair.

“We were discussing our engagement,” Elinor replied as she reached for her comb.

“Oh, is he finally planning another visit to Whitwell?” her mother said, carrying a china bowl with some washing water. “Sir John has said very often how fine the grounds are.”

“No, our engagement,” Elinor clarified. “It would be best to set a date in January, we thought, so that his sister might be home from France, but before the Middletons depart for London again.” She turned around in surprise at the crash of breaking crockery. Her mother was standing dumbfounded in a pool of water, surprised beyond all measure. Elinor shrugged and went back to combing her hair. It seemed that engaged life had compensations of its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. As of the posting day, this is the second longest story I've posted on AO3. Go me! (Cough-in a modest and humble way, of course. Cough.)
> 
> Thanks for all the lovely and thoughtful comments. :-)


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